1. Field
Aspects of the present disclosure may relate to reducing delay when transmitting information. More specifically, aspects of the present invention may relate to reducing the delay in the end-to-end content (such as video) transmission that is attributable to a File Delivery over Unidirectional Transport (FLUTE) package engine in a Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH) over FLUTE environment.
2. Background
Wireless communication networks are widely deployed to provide various communication services such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, etc. These wireless networks may be multiple-access networks capable of supporting multiple users by sharing the available network resources. Examples of such multiple-access networks include Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) networks, Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) networks, Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) networks, Orthogonal FDMA (OFDMA) networks, and Single-Carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA) networks.
A wireless communication network may include a number of base stations that can support communication for a number of user equipments (UEs), also referred to as mobile entities. A UE may communicate with a base station via a downlink and an uplink. The downlink (or forward link) refers to the communication link from the base station to the UE, and the uplink (or reverse link) refers to the communication link from the UE to the base station. As used herein, a “base station” means an eNode B (eNB), a Node B, a Home Node B, or similar network component of a wireless communications system.
The 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Long Term Evolution (LTE) represents a major advance in cellular technology as an evolution of Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) and Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS). The LTE physical layer (PHY) provides a highly efficient way to convey both data and control information between base stations, such as an evolved Node Bs (eNBs), and mobile entities, such as UEs. In prior applications, a method for facilitating high bandwidth communication for multimedia has been single frequency network (SFN) operation. SFNs utilize radio transmitters, such as, for example, eNBs, to communicate with subscriber UEs. In unicast operation, each eNB is controlled so as to transmit signals carrying information directed to one or more particular subscriber UEs. The specificity of unicast signaling enables person-to-person services such as, for example, voice calling, text messaging, or video calling.
In broadcast operation, several eNBs in a broadcast area may broadcast signals in a synchronized fashion, carrying information that can be received and accessed by any subscriber UE in the broadcast area. The generality of broadcast operation enables greater efficiency in transmitting information of general public interest, for example, event-related multimedia broadcasts. As the demand and system capability for event-related multimedia and other broadcast services has increased, system operators have shown increasing interest in making use of broadcast operation in 3GPP networks. In the past, 3GPP LTE technology has been primarily used for unicast service, leaving opportunities for improvements and enhancements related to broadcast signaling.
Transmission of content, such as video content, may be performed by various methods in communication networks. In the case of video content, for example, transmission of video information from a video source to display can be made via, inter alia, unicast transmissions and multicast/broadcast transmissions. Unicast transmissions are directed to a specifically targeted receiving device. To obtain a unicast transmission, a target device may have a Uniform Resource Locator (“URL”) with the address of the video source, and may generate an HTTP GET command that it may send to the video source (typically a server) to facilitate download of the video file.
A known method for transmission of video in a unicast environment is through Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (DASH). Use of DASH in unicast obtains the entire file. DASH may convert the video file into smaller components called DASH segments, which may be reassembled at the receiving device to display the desired video.
Multicast or broadcast transmissions, such as in evolved-Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Service (eMBMS), present different considerations, as the transmissions are sent to multiple receiving devices. In these environments the modems of the receiving devices can obtain information before the associated system actually takes steps to obtain that information. That received information may be stored locally in the receiving device's local cache. When the system (typically at the application layer) generates a URL to obtain the information, the generated URL may point toward the local cache rather than the server as in the unicast environment.
DASH utilized in combination with File Delivery over Unidirectional Transport (FLUTE) is one methodology that has been used for multicast environments. In this methodology, video content may be converted into DASH segments. Small groups of DASH segments may be accumulated by a FLUTE package engine (FPE), which in turn may convert the DASH segments into FLUTE packets for transmission. Use of DASH over FLUTE in this environment may lead to delay issues and interruptions in display of video content.